Chapter Twenty-Four Margo Angelhart
Chapter Twenty-Four
Margo Angelhart
We borrowed Jack’s truck and Luisa explained her plan to me on our short drive to the VA.
“You can do that?” I asked. I didn’t want to admit I didn’t quite understand what she planned to do. She lost me at “installing a worm.”
“Yep, but I need a distraction, and that’s you.”
Her idea was wild, but I thought it could work. Maybe. At least, it was worth a try. And even if we were caught, I figured
we’d be able to talk our way out of it and not end up in prison. I hoped.
We locked our guns in the secure box in the cab of Jack’s truck because there were metal detectors at every public entrance,
then walked across the parking lot to the nonemergency entrance.
Like every building in Arizona, it was too cold. Even now, in November, I walked out of a perfect 75-degree fall day into
a freezer, making me irritable.
I wrinkled my nose at the stench of antiseptic. I had practically been raised in this hospital, considering my father had been a doctor here for most of my life, but I never got used to the smell.
I hoped my dressed down appearance with the addition of my worn Army jacket that I’d grabbed from my Jeep before leaving it
with Nate would help me blend in with all the other vets who were waiting for their appointments.
Luisa walked a step behind me, hoodie up, face lowered like a teenager sneaking into a movie theater. Except she had steely
nerves and a thumb drive loaded with some questionable firmware.
“You sure about this?” I whispered.
“Yes,” she said. “Just do what I said.”
Basically, bullshit my way into distracting the gatekeeper and the guard.
“You know where you’re going?” I asked her.
She gave me that look, the one that said she knew more about what she was doing than I did and to not ask questions.
Yeah, Luisa, my brilliant hacker sister, learned all her skills courtesy of the Marines. Gotta love it.
“Don’t get caught,” I told her as she stood at the elevator.
I squared my shoulders and walked toward the check-in window like I had a purpose, which was half the battle. If you acted
like you should be here, people thought you should be here.
The woman behind the glass wore reader glasses and a sour expression that screamed Too many years, not enough gratitude. She looked up at me with a frown.
“Name.”
“Margaret Angelhart.”
I hated that all my official documents had my full name. No one called me Margaret and lived to tell about it.
“Birth date.”
I told her.
“Do you have an appointment?”
She had the voice of Roz from Monsters, Inc., but with less charm.
“Dr. Levinson.” She had done my physical when I separated from the Army nine years ago. I haven’t been back since, but I’d
checked before coming in and knew she still worked here.
Roz typed rapidly. Stopped. Typed. Stopped. Said, “I have no appointment for you today. I have no appointment for you scheduled
at all.”
I frowned, feigning surprise. I took out my phone. Out of the corner of my eye I watched the security guard who was standing
at the door monitoring those who entered as well as the security screens at his desk. I had to get him to turn away so that
Luisa could slip into the secured area.
I showed her the appointment on my phone. “See? Right here. Three p.m. Dr. Levinson. I had this scheduled, like, forever.
Did it get canceled on me?”
“She’s in today, but you are not on her schedule.”
“This is important. I have shrapnel in my ass and it’s been bugging me.”
I made a move to turn around and show her my scar—yes, I had been hit with shrapnel in my ass when I was deployed overseas.
Long story that I hadn’t told anyone because it was neither heroic nor interesting. And the last thing I needed was for my
brothers to tease me endlessly.
“Do not pull down your pants, Ms. Angelhart!” the clerk exclaimed loud enough to draw attention from the guard.
When I looked back toward the elevators, Luisa had disappeared.
Part one, success.
I turned to face her. “Can you check again? Please?”
“You don’t have an appointment. Go to the online portal to schedule it.”
“Can I just go up to her office and schedule it? Maybe she can fit me in.”
“No. All scheduling must be done online.”
I knew that was bullshit, but it was convenient for this woman to try and get rid of me.
She made a motion to the guard to approach. Wow. This woman was a bitch.
“Just give me a visitor’s pass and I’ll talk to Dr. Levinson’s nurse, get this all straightened out.”
“Ma’am,” the security guard said, “you need to leave. There is a line and you’re causing a disturbance.”
I frowned and tried to cry. I failed. I’ve never been able to cry on cue, so instead I pouted deeply and blinked rapidly.
“I have to see the doctor. I have an issue and it’s not going away.”
“The emergency entrance is on the other side of the building,” he said.
“She said I had to make an appointment!” I glared at Roz accusatorially.
The clerk harrumphed and shook her head. She pressed a button and the doors behind her swung open. “Go down that hall and
turn right when you get to the end. If it’s an emergency, they will assist you.”
“Thank you,” I said. “That’s all I needed.”
She gave me a look as if maybe I needed to turn left and head to the mental health ward.
I went through the doors; they swung closed behind me.
Bingo.
Luisa met me halfway down the hall. We turned before we hit the corridor that led to the emergency wing. Phase two, success.
“How did you get here?” I asked, keeping my eye out for security.
She slapped a visitor sticker on me. She had one on herself. She pressed the button to the staff elevator and smiled. “Oh, I have my ways. Do you really have shrapnel in your ass?”
“Not anymore,” I told her. “Do not say a word to Jack or Nico.”
She grinned as we stepped into the elevator.
“Did you get what you needed?” I asked.
“Yep.”
We got off on the second floor, which was where my father used to work. A nurse glanced at us, saw the visitor stickers, and
passed by.
Luisa turned into the first storage room. She swiped a passkey.
“How the hell?” I asked.
“Shh.”
We entered and Luisa said, “There’s a network plug for updating the software in every storage room that stores electronics.
I need ten minutes, but if someone walks in, I’m screwed. Go outside and stop anyone from entering.” She pulled a tablet and
wire from her messenger bag.
“Okay,” I said, impressed.
I stepped out and saw two chairs directly across from the door. I sat in one. Nurses walked by. An orderly. Three minutes
later, an orderly slowed, pulled his key card to enter the storage room where Luisa was still working. I jumped up. “Can you
help me?”
He turned and smiled. He was young, which was good. He wouldn’t have been here long and I hoped didn’t know the answers off
the top of his head.
“Sure, maybe?” he said.
“My dad’s in surgery. Well, he was, he should be in recovery, and they said they were bringing him up here, but I can’t find
his room.”
“This isn’t the hospital wing. These are doctors’ offices.”
“What? I thought I followed the directions perfectly. Room 215.” I pointed to a door two down. “But it was locked.”
He smiled kindly. “It can be confusing. The hospital rooms start with an H. So H-215 is in the hospital wing. These are the
doctors’ offices, no letter.”
Of course, I did know that. Hospitals made their numbering system as confusing as the City of Phoenix made their streets.
I bit the inside of my cheek so hard it made me tear up, which is exactly what I wanted. I looked left and right, plastering
confusion all over my face. “I feel so stupid.”
“I can walk you over, not a problem.”
“Would you? That’s so nice, thank you,” I said, louder than I needed to. I hoped Luisa could hear me. “I’m just so worried
about my dad, he’s all I have, you know? I went into the Army because of him, following in his footsteps . . .”
We walked, and I glanced back once. Luisa didn’t emerge.
I hoped she was okay.
The orderly left me outside room H-215. I waited a few minutes, then retraced our steps back to the medical office wing, hoping
I didn’t run into him again . . . and hoping that Luisa hadn’t gotten caught. I knocked on the storage room door.
Luisa didn’t come out. Maybe she hadn’t heard the conversation outside the door and the orderly returned and found her.
“Lu!” I said in a loud stage whisper.
Nothing.
Well, shit. Maybe she couldn’t hear me.
My phone vibrated.
What’s taking you so long? I’m in the parking lot.
Driving back, I said, “Tell me what you did.”
“I already told you.”
“I can pick a lock, but I can’t hack into a computer. Explain it to me like I’m five.”
“I planted a worm in the system so that I can get in through a back door. Let’s go to the office. The computers there are
better than my laptop.”
“And they won’t trace it to us?”
Luisa gave me a look that said I was clearly an ignoramus. “No. I’m good at what I do.”
“I guess I have to trust you, don’t I? What do you need from the system?”
“The clinical trials have Willa Blankenship all over them, but she’s not a VA employee. Someone at the VA medical center had
to have approved the Phase 1 trial. I need to find out who it is, and there should be records in the system. Tess and I have
several names, but it’s a lot of people to investigate and we’re running out of time. Plus, I want to see what might have
happened to the file that was deleted. Nothing is gone forever.”
“I think it’s Jim Novak,” I told her, and explained what I learned at Honor House about his Monday morning appointment at
the medical center.
“That’s even better. I’ll search for him and if I don’t find anything, that confirms his file must be the one missing. Then
I’ll try to undelete it, but that might take time because I don’t know their system yet. I also want to look at Christina
Aberdeen’s record. You said Liz noticed a year was missing from a patient file before the file disappeared, right?”
“Yes. She also said it wasn’t the first time this had happened.
“Well, if we’re right and the year is missing from the patients who were illegally deleted from the clinical trial, then Aberdeen
will also have a missing year.”
“Can you search everyone who has a missing year? Maybe we can find all ten people Georgia said were omitted from the report.”
Luisa laughed. “No. If I have a name or record number, then I can look at that record, but I can’t search on fields that don’t exist.”
“You know this is very illegal,” I said. “Medical records are sacrosanct.”
“I’m not going to look at anything I’m not supposed to.”
Now it was my turn to shoot her the look.
“I’m not going to do anything with any information I might accidentally see,” she clarified. “My goal is to identify the staff
who had access to the initial research program, a list of vets who were part of the trial, and a list hopefully that includes
the ten who were removed. And, search for Jim Novak’s file. If it’s completely missing, I’m screwed, but if it was deleted
I might be able to find it.”
“Let’s not tell anyone about this, okay? Especially anyone with a badge.”
“Is Cal really that uptight?”
“Nope. But I don’t want to test him on something that is clearly a misdemeanor and likely a felony.”
“Fair enough. And I don’t think we should tell Jack either. He can be super uptight about breaking the rules.”
“Breaking rules he’s mostly cool with, it’s breaking laws where he has a problem.” I paused, considered other repercussions.
“If we find something through these files that helps Dad, we can’t use it.”
“Of course we can,” Luisa said.
“No, because we got the information illegally. We’re going to have to get the info legally as well.”
Lu frowned. “Well, once we know what it is, then we can find it again, right?”
“I suppose,” I said, though I was getting a headache trying to figure out how.
If we were cops, we’d be screwed—anything that came from our investigation using illegally obtained information would be dismissed from evidence.
But we weren’t cops. We were PIs. We could find a way.
We had to. Our dad’s freedom—and maybe his life—was on the line.
It didn’t take us long to reach the office. I didn’t want to stay and do nothing, but I wasn’t going to leave Luisa alone.
I asked her to give me something.
“Tess is focused on those who are still working at the VA, but someone needs to talk to the woman who retired last year.”
“I’ll take her,” I said.
“She’s either in Wyoming or Scottsdale,” Luisa said as she plugged her tablet into her computer.
“Must be nice to have two homes,” I said. While I didn’t mind the heat, I wouldn’t mind spending all days that exceeded 120
degrees up in Wyoming. Basically, July and August.
“I’ve called Annette Blankenship, Willa’s daughter, four times,” Luisa said. “She hasn’t called me back.”
“I can be super annoying when necessary,” I said. “Send me her contact info.”